Obesity Is Associated With Urinary Tract Infections

You are so fat, that you infect your own urine.

Obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI) is associated with increased risk for urinary tract infection (UTI) and pyelonephritis in both sexes, according to a retrospective, cross-sectional study.

Overall, the incidences of UTI and pyelonephritis were 2.5- and 5-fold higher among obese individuals (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) than among nonobese individuals, report Michelle J. Semins, MD, and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, in an article published in the February issue of Urology.

"Obesity has also been associated with urological conditions such as male and female sexual dysfunction, infertility, incontinence, genitourinary malignancy, and nephrolithiasis," the authors write. "A similar relationship between obesity and [UTI] may exist but it has not been as well defined."...

The authors mention that the association between obesity and infection could have medical and financial implications. "[T]he high incidence of infection observed in the obese population places a meaningful financial burden on health care resource use and may also lead to other medical complications," the authors write.

And that the rest of us are paying for your illness of choice stinks, too.